CHESTER'S BIG SURPRISE

Chester the dog's best canine friend, Tilda, has mysteriously missed their usual play date in the traffic circle. Searching for her, he loses a sandwich to an adversary, revels in pats and rubs proferred by kids in the schoolyard, and steels himself to investigate the spooky dinosaur park (readers can refer to the endpapers, which map Chester's trail). But it turns out that Tilda has been at home all along, tending to the big surprise in the title: her newborn puppies. Newcomer Villet's text just barely moves the story along ("Maybe Tilda's at the shop? Chester looks inside. He looks under the table and between the shelves"). The full-bleed, double-page spreads, however, make more of an impression. Chester's flattened-perspective world is distilled down to bold, chunky shapes and expanses of dense muted colors. As for Chester, he's a comically stolid (except when being tickled), muscle-bound hero, and the patch-shaped spot over one eye gives him a soupçon of rakishness. Ages 2-4. (Mar.)